Woops! I seem to have been abducted into TV land again while working on my latest job. I'm with BBC3 for 6 weeks, and the first 2 weeks have absolutely flown in. Which is great, however there seems to be not enough hours in the day and days in the week for me to do all the things I want to do. The perks of having a semi long contract (6 weeks, I know... may not seem like long for most people but for me it is!) are definitely a guaranteed pay day every friday, and having weekends off. The downside is I am super tired, all day every day, and my poor wee blog and newly found gym routine seems to have been neglected.

The scales in my house are broken, which has sort of been a blessing in disguise because I would weigh myself every other day and obsess about the number on the display screen. I've really needed to break out of this habit for a while now, and I feel a lot better for it. I feel like I am 'listening' to my body and focusing on how I feel and how my clothes sit on me instead. I used to swear by My Fitness Pal, but it also stressed me out a bit - logging all my calories and freaking out if I went 30 over my daily recommended intake. Instead, I am eating 3 meals a day and only eating healthy snacks in between when hunger strikes. Oh, and I'm also not denying myself chocolate or a little treat every now and again. I definitely don't feel like this relaxed approach has made me pile any pounds on, so when I do get back to the gym I will weigh myself out of curiosity and see what the past month has done to me weight wise.

Anyway, I did not mean to start this post on a bit of a rant/downer, but I hope other people can relate to how I feel, and how it feels to see others making a lot of progress with their fitness and body goals while you feel like you're up a creek without a paddle. This time last month I was off to such a good start! So I'm not gonna let this dip put me off. The last few times I did go to the gym a couple of weeks ago I decided to mix up my usual protein shake routine with post workout juices instead. Currys kindly sent me a Phillips Juicer as part of their Juiced Up campaign, and sent me on my merry way to make the perfect workout drink.

I was randomly given this juice book a few months ago on my last job, and rather intrigued at the juice detox's etc I kept a few pages bookmarked with the intention of looking into them further. Now with a juicer on my kitchen counter I didn't really have an excuse not to get to work! There are a lot of vegetable based juices, but I decided to break myself in easily with a rather fruity concoction called the Peak Performer.

One thing I will say, all the fruit for the recipe wasn't cheap! I spent around £8 in Tesco getting the above, but I think if this were to become a regular thing I would definitely stock up at my local green grocers, rather than the expensive convenience of a Tesco Metro. When I saw it all plated up, I thought how the hell am I going to consume all of this?

Alas, the juicer was amazing! So easy to set up for use and clean afterwards, and it literally blitzed the fruits whole. It was strangely satisfying watching each piece of fruit get blitzed haha. The only thing I had to cut up were the apples so they fit down the top of the juicer. But it literally whizzed up everything - stalks, stems and seeds included. I don't know why I initially had a smoothie consistency in my head (come on Ayden, this is a JUICER after all) and all the pulp left from the fruit was squished into a little compartment at the bottom of the machine.

This is how much juice my recipe made. Definitely enough for two large glasses or three small ones, so you could stagger drinking them throughout the day, or make a couple of days worth at the one time. Now I understand why proper juice companies charge so much for a weeks plan. It did taste absolutely delicious and satisfyingly guilt free. I think next time I will be a little more adventurous and try one of the more vegetable based recipes. With my first juice made I headed over to my local Virgin Active gym with a visitors pass to try out a CXWORKS class. It was pretty tough and focused on tightening and toning your core muscles. It was nice to visit a different gym for a change, and I've found out that my own gym does this class too so I will definitely give it another go. I am more of a classes person rather than the bog standard gym, but maybe this will change as I start to make more focused goals and understand what sort exercises I want to focus on for my body.

A few of my blogging friends including Ruth have been digging the juicing recently. What do you think about it? Is it something you would try at home if you had the right tools?

A couple of weekends ago my lovely friend Sally came to visit from London for the weekend. We had tickets for Fall Out Boy on the Saturday night at the Hydro, so I wanted to spend the rest of the weekend giving her a super quick tour of Glasgow. Sally does the same job as me but down in London, so we always manage to have a good gossip about work (and boys, and unicorns... all the usual stuff really)

Last time Sally and I saw each other was during my London trip in October,
and I definitely need to do that again this year. Some of the
highlights from that trip were Drink Shop & Do with Sally and Chloe,
Spitalfields Market with Erin, epic hotel room gin drinking with Matt,
Dim Sum with Max, and all the wandering around the shops that I did on
my lonesome during the days (WAH Nails, Lauduree, Drop Dead, Liberty, the list goes on...)
London is a dangerous place to spend your wages! Not to mention The
Harry Potter Studio Tour. Oh my days, I would do that again in a
heartbeat. Next time I'm down I've got my eye on taking the Muggle Tours which I spied on the Hotel Direct events calendar. It is a tour of Harry Potter film locations around London, and sounds right up my street. I wish we had more stuff like that up here :( But I'm a proud Glasgow Girl and I was still determined to give my London sweetheart a weekend to remember!

Glasgow was rainy for Sally's arrival, but not surprised with that weather to be honest! I like that the days are getting longer - well, it's lighter into the evening. Reassuring sign that summer is on its way. We went to the Cathouse on the friday night for lots of drinking and dancing, and on Saturday before the gig I took Sally to my local BBQ joint, Buddys. It's only a 10 min walk away so we braved the showers and took a stroll. The odd thing about the weather at this time of year (especially in Scotland) is that it can be raining one minute, then sun bursting through the clouds the next. I love wrapping up cosy, but still want to feel colourful and able to strip the layers off if I need to.

This is probably my best attempt at cross seasonal dressing. Thick tights and these new (and surprisingly comfy) Dr Martens shoes, along with a waterproof raincoat and snood. The dress from Zalando was actually quite thick, almost a velvet like material so quite warm even though it doesn't look it! Oh, and I may have dyed my hair pink :) I used crazy colour so after a couple of weeks it has faded to a pastel pink now, which I am quite enjoying. Any tips for dressing between seasons? I absolutely hate getting caught out, and can be a very grumpy lady if I'm out and about but too hot or too cold (and wet feet too, bloody awful)

We got some well earned burgers and poutine at Buddys, and if my memory serves me right had to go home for a nap before the gig because we were so stuffed! Fall Out Boy were brilliant and we spent the concert dancing away, reliving our youth :) On sunday Sally had to catch the train home at 3pm, so we went into the city centre for a wander around the shops and some lunch. I was very sad to wave this lady goodbye.

London and Glasgow, have you been to either city? What are your favourite things to do in both? I'm a total home bird but wondering if my career will maybe take me to London one day (and knowing my luck, I'll take the rain clouds down with me) Watch this space ;) ♥

Ahh exercise and healthy eating... I have missed you my old friend! To be honest I feel like a bit of a hypocrite sitting writing this post when I've just had an ice lolly for dinner, but my time back on the wagon had been great until I came down with the cold at the weekend (and ironically feel like my whole body is on fire) I also got my inner arm tattooed on sunday, so these two combined are leaving me feeling a little worse for wear. But hopefully by this weekend I'll be on top form again and can continue with my best of intentions.

After all the luxuries and laziness of Christmas and New Year were well out the way I was determined to start again with the healthy lifestyle I seemed to live for the bulk of last year. I struggled for weeks to find the motivation, and wish it had been as easy as pushing a 'start' button. One morning I decided to weigh myself, and saw that I had put on the half a stone that I worked so hard to loose last year. That was it! Enough to flip me into action and get the ball rolling.

I was approached by Quorn to become one of their new Ambassadors, which
was a lovely surprise as I have been using their meat free products a
lot in my cooking over the past 6 months in an aim to get more protein
in my diet (and also take a break each week from real meat which is
slightly more fatty and calorific) I am by no means a vegetarian, but I
will pop a link up to my first post for Quorn once it is live over on their blog, so you can have a read and see some of my reasons for using a meat free alternative at least once a week.

Quorn very kindly gave me a donation towards my fitness goals, which meant I could finally take the plunge and join my loyal gym! This is the first time I have been a gym member in over 3 years, but went to boot camp and did a bit of running in between. I joined the Glasgow Life Gym which means I have access to classes and the swimming pool as well as the gym for £31 a month. Managed to bag a cheeky wee BBC discount on my membership too. I got a colourful new Ripcurl bag from Spartoo to use as my new gym bag, and next on the list is to update my sports attire as my current stuff is looking a bit sad. Where can I buy some pretty new work out gear from you guyssss?

The Ripcurl bag is pretty big and comfortably fits my whole gym kit (which is handy if I'm coming straight from work) plus a towel, deodorant, water bottle and protein shaker. I have been using the chocolate impact whey protein from Myprotein mixed with milk straight after my workout. It is genuinely the nicest and most drinkable of all protein shakes I've tried so far, and tastes just like chocolate milkshake! I'm not normally too adventurous with this sort of thing but would quite like to try some of the other flavours which they do. I'm a bit clueless at the moment when it comes to protein shakes and post workout juices so would love to hear your experiences and advice!

You may have heard me mention about my Jawbone UP on the blog before. It was out of action for ages because I lost the charger (doh) and only recently discovered you could buy a replacement on the website for £6! So my old faithful has returned, and I literally wear this little gadget morning, noon and through the night.

This clever little piece of kit plugs into your phone via the headphone jack and sync's up with its very own app.

The motion sensors inside the band track your sleeping patterns during the night, your movement throughout the day, and can also sync up with other apps such as My Fitness Pal to track your food. A closer look at the daily steps shows me how far I have walked each day, calories burned, and a steps goal (which you can set to whatever you please but I am currently at the recommended level for my age, weight etc)

I bought the Jawbone from the Apple Store, but I think Nike also do a similar band. It is quite addictive to use once you get into it, and the band vibrates if I have been sitting idle for too long so it is a good reminder for me to get up and about during the day and stretch my legs - even if I have been sitting in front of the computer all day.

Everything I have mentioned above has helped to kick start me back into a healthy lifestyle. I don't want any more fad diets or obsessing unhealthily over my weight. I want to make sensible and long term goals that are actually achievable, with the aim of feeling happy and healthy. If I loose some weight in the process then that would be great, but I am finished with letting the scales ruin my mood! I love food and hope that I can have a positive relationship with it, along with the addition of some regular exercise to keep my anxiety levels at bay too.

I'd love to hear your current fitness/food goals, stories or woes! It's reassuring to know that I'm not alone in my journey.